After having made studies of theology to the academy of Lausanne, Bridel is devoted in 1781. Suffragan with Prilly, Pasteur of the French Church of Basle (1786-1796), Castle-in OEx (until 1805), of Montreux (until its death). Senior of the class of Lausanne-Vevey (1811-1814), from where the name of “Bridel senior”.

Bridel is especially known for its interest for the folklore, the traditions popular, the regional geography, biology (it shares the taste of his Samuel-Elisee brother for botany), demography (following the census of 1798).

He is the author of many literary works, in prose and worms, which he for the majority gathered in the New Year's gifts helvétiennes, almanac which he published as from 1783 and which it on several occasions altered until the publication of the Swiss Conservative in thirteen volumes (1813-1831).

Bridel draws its inspiration in the Germanic great authors of the XVIII ^E S. (Gessner, Haller, Bodmer, Breitinger and especially Lavater), which it adapts or imitates, and at Rousseau (the Héloïse News). Its attempts to create a Swiss national poetry of French expression, where the Alps constitute a topic dominating and where the love of Switzerland transcends the cantonal identity, are generally judged severely, even if one can, with Gonzague de Reynold, to distinguish at his place the emergence of French poetry. It was one of the rare French members of the Swiss Company.

One still must in Bridel, which counted among the founders of the Company of history of the French-speaking Switzerland , a Glossary of the patois of the French-speaking Switzerland (1866).